The Good Chase (6 page)

“Let me guess. Both of those were also part of my tasting group.”

She grinned. “Yep. I'd call their wives Dates, people who are just along for the ride. And then there are Haters.”

“Self-explanatory.”

“Exactly.”

This woman was intensely amusing. He could probably sit and listen to her talk all night. If there wasn't something
else
he'd like to be doing with her, too.

“You don't think that's a little snobbish?” he asked.

She drew back a bit. “I don't mean it like that. But it helps me relate to customers if I can get the labels right. I know how to approach them or how to tailor a tasting.”

“Makes sense, then.” Swirling the mug, he looked at it as though it were glass and he could watch the whisky churn inside. “I think, if I had to choose, I'd pick bourbon over Scotch.”

She pressed her elbows to the table. Her gaze turned inward. Dreamy, he'd dared to say. Her lips curved slightly upward. “I love bourbon, too.” Then she gave a little shake of her head. “My granddad didn't, though, and he was the one who taught me all about whisky with just a
y
. Scotch whisky.” When he gave her a quizzical look, she added, “All other whiskey is spelled with an
e-y
at the end, except for Canadian whisky, which is just the
y
.”

“Aha.”

“He claimed the
e-y
stuff wasn't rooted well enough, wasn't historical, and I get where he's coming from, but I don't necessarily agree. I love it all for different reasons.”

“Historical?” He shifted on the bench, trying to scoot closer and cursing the table between them. “Explain.”

She gestured to his mug. “Okay, give it a nose.”

He did, using the three-step process he'd found on the Internet, which seemed to have impressed her.

“Smell that? Close your eyes.”

He did.

“Picture yourself standing in a green valley, where the rain is little more than a fine mist bringing out the scent of the grass. And as you're walking along there's an old stone wall that's been there for centuries, and clumps of purple heather. It's so quiet you can hear sheep and cows in the distance, but you can't see them. If you're near the coast, you can smell the salt in the air when the wind turns the right way. Along an old road there's a pub with a thatched roof, and when you go inside, the place smells of peat fire and the polish they used on the wood bar just that morning. Everyone speaks in such a lovely accent, and as you sip their favorite whisky, you can taste their stories.”

Entranced. There really was no other word to describe what he felt at that moment. Byrne didn't want her to stop describing things, but she did. And when he opened his eyes, the look on her face told him she spoke from memory. It made him want her more, and he didn't think that was even possible.

She lifted her mug in a toast. “Now let's drink.”

Though he raised the mug to his lips, he didn't take a sip. Instead, he watched her drink. The moment her mug went back, her eyes fluttered closed. She worked the whisky in her mouth, at the back of her jaw, chewing it, like the random guy on the Internet video had once instructed him. There was elegance to the way she did it, however. Elegance and . . . sensuality. She looked nearly orgasmic.

Her throat worked, the whisky sliding down, and then she opened her eyes. She glanced at his still-full cup. “You didn't drink.”

I wonder why.

“Sorry.”
Act casual.
“Was watching you to make sure I was doing it right.”

She silently set her mug on the table. Licked her lips. “You do it right.” Then she hastily added, “I saw you, remember? Last week.”

Was it only last week? It seemed like they'd been doing this dance forever.

In the silence, in the stillness, just the flames behind her moved. Only the logs made sound as they popped and sizzled, and then came muffled giggles from the next campsite as a dad tried to wrangle his toddlers back into their tent.

“You did skip out before I got to the tasting part,” she said. “Want me to give you the VIP tour?”

“Please.”

“Okay. Close your eyes again.”

He grinned. “But then I'll miss my mouth.”

Jesus, her smile. A full-on, uninhibited, all-the-teeth, crinkles-under-the-eyes blast of one hundred percent beautiful.

Holding her gaze, he slowly pressed the mug to his mouth and closed his eyes. Feeling a little like Luke with the blast shield down, he trusted in his Obi-Wan and tipped back his head, letting the whisky roll past his lips and settle in the back of his throat.

“There,” she breathed. “Do you taste the sun on the fields of barley? The water from the lochs? The smoke from the ancient peat bogs? The people's pride? The history?”

He swallowed. This bottle was half-gone, having been drunk by himself and nameless others back in the city, and yet he'd never enjoyed it a quarter as much as he did just then.

When he opened his eyes, she'd leaned back a bit, questioning him with a squint.

All he thought was, if this was how she did tastings at the Amber,
holy shit
, no wonder that place was so popular and that she was such a hit.

“I left out the part about the dirty men who work in the distilleries,” she said. “And how rank the mash smells.”

“And I thank you for that.” But he still drank what was left in his mug, again tasting everything she'd just described.

She laughed and turned sideways, throwing one leg over the back of the picnic bench. A water bottle sat at the far end of the table, and she unscrewed the cap to take a sip.

He nodded at the bottle. “Don't some people add water to whisky?”

“You can.” She sipped the water again. “It cuts the alcohol and brings out the flavor. Want to try?”

The easiest thing would have been to just reach across the six inches and take the water bottle, but Byrne's life had never been easy, so why start now?

He stood up and she eyed him questioningly. But he wasn't leaving. No way. Not yet. Instead he walked around the table to her side. He straddled the bench, facing her. The fire's heat coated the right side of his body. She sat so still that for a moment he thought that time might've stopped. Maybe he wanted it to.

Taking the whisky bottle, he tipped a bit more into his mug. Shea was still holding the water bottle, and he asked for it with a lift of his eyebrows and a point of his finger. She answered with a nod but didn't make a move to give it to him, so he reached for it. Slid his hand over hers. With the tiniest of gasps, she released the bottle.

The first touch is always the best, and he let it sink in, let himself memorize how it felt.

“Just a few drops,” she said, after clearing her throat.

“Gotcha.” He did as the expert instructed. “Is that enough?”

“Sure.” Though she hadn't looked away from his face.

Under the pretense of getting more comfortable on the hard wood bench, he inched closer to her. “Do you add water to your whisky?”

She licked her lips.
My God
.

“Sometimes.”

Though he clutched the blue-and-white mug in his hand, it seemed nonexistent. Completely unimportant. The only thing he saw was Shea.

“Aren't you going to taste it?” she whispered.

He was already leaning in. “Absolutely.”

And then her mouth belonged to him, her sweet whisky lips impossibly perfect, their movement open and yielding. He sank a little deeper, and her mouth let him in. Cupping a hand around her neck, he couldn't believe how soft her skin was underneath that fall of hair.

God, this kiss.
This kiss
. A whole year of anticipation had been backed up behind it, and now the taste of her rocketed through his body. The delicious whisky taste of her.

When she tilted her head more and he felt the smooth slide of her tongue against his, he made some sort of unintelligible sound. She smiled against his lips and pulled back. His hand on her neck loosened.

“I like that you're here,” she said. “In this place. With me.”

He nudged closer. Their legs touched. Where his whisky mug had gone, he had no idea. Didn't care.

“Not gonna lie,” he said. “I straight up want you.”

A small line of conflict appeared between her eyebrows, but then it vanished as she touched his face. “I want you, too, but—”

He strained for her mouth and kissed her again. Kissed away whatever
but
was about to come out. He loved the way her hand curled around his head.

“—but I have those rules,” she continued, breaking away again.

He groaned. “Right, right.”

“I've been thinking, though.” A little tease of a kiss. A troublemaker's gleam in her eye.

“Yeah?” Suddenly he felt like a dog whose owner was dangling a leash by the front door.

“About how I've already basically bent them. And how it might be fun to completely break them. Just for tonight.”

“
Yes
.” He grabbed her around the waist and hauled her up against him. She was tall but also whisper thin, and she came to him fast.

“But—”

“No buts.”

She laughed. “But all I have is the tent. I don't do car sex. This is kind of a big stretch for me as it is.”

“Tent sex sounds amazing. In fact, the thought of it really turns me on.”

She still seemed a little worried. “I think there needs to be some sort of sign that I'm doing the right thing.”

“How about this?”

Now he had her whole body up against him as he kissed her, and he felt her everywhere.

The hand on his head slid around so she had a death grip on his neck, while her other hand made a fist over the Wharton emblem on the front of his sweatshirt. Her mouth pressed harder onto his, and he wanted to tell her to go ahead and be as strong or violent as she wanted, because if she was going to stretch her rules for him, he wanted her to be as happy as he was at that moment.

The whisky taste faded, and then it was just her flavor, and she was ten times more delicious.

“Byrrrrrrrne. Fuck, man, there you are.”

Oh no.

Shea ripped her mouth from his, fingers pressed to her lips, and whipped her head around to where uneven footsteps crunched on the gravel road. Shea scooted off Byrne's lap—how'd she gotten there?—and scrambled backward off the bench.

Byrne propped an elbow on the tabletop and ground fingers into his eyelids. Fucking Dan.

“
What
?” Byrne glared at the drunk leaning heavily on the numbered post.

Dan jutted a thumb back down the road, toward their own campsite. “Been walking around forever trying to find you.”

“Get out of here.”

Byrne looked to Shea, who was poking the fire again, her head down, her wet and swollen bottom lip between her teeth. He tried to read her mood. Pissed off? Embarrassed? What?

“Came to get you,” Dan said. “We gotta go. Ranger kicked us out.”

That brought Byrne up off the bench. “Are you serious?”

“You're the only one sober, so you'll have to drive us back.”

“Shit.” Hands on his hips, he drew a deep breath and exhaled up toward the canopy of trees that hid the stars. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He gave Shea a look of silent apology. She'd stopped poking the fire and was now watching him in a way that clearly said he wouldn't get to be with her that night. So he asked for another.

“When we get back to the city,” he said, dropping his voice, “can I see you?”

Her eyes flicked over his shoulder toward Dan.

“I know you stretched your rules for me here; would you consider doing the same back home?”

“Not near the Amber,” she said. “That's one rule I won't break.”

“New Jersey, if we have to,” he added.

“Maybe,” she replied.

And that was good enough for him.

5

T
he elevator door slid open on the fifteenth floor of the sixties-era apartment building on the Upper East Side. Shea stepped into a small marble foyer decorated with ornate wall sconces and bursting with massive fresh flower arrangements.

This had been Marco's neighborhood. They'd lived together only two long blocks to the east. Briefly Shea wondered if it was Bespoke Byrne's neighborhood, too, but then the door to the penthouse yawned open and she was face-to-face with a short, curvy, mature woman who'd been tucked into a sparkling red evening gown.

The woman looked confused at the sight of Shea, standing alone in the foyer, dressed in a ladies' tuxedo.

“Hi, I'm Shea Montgomery. Mr. Yellin hired me to man the whiskey bar tonight?”

“Oh. That would be my husband. Come in, come in.”

Shea followed Mrs. Yellin into one of the more opulent New York City apartments she'd ever been in—and back when she'd been with Marco, she'd seen a lot.

“Isaac can't stop talking about the Amber,” Mrs. Yellin threw over her shoulder as her low heels clicked down the shiny wood hallway that seemed to stretch all the way to the Hudson. “Whenever I can't find him, or whenever he's been out too late, I know where he is. Or has been. I should put your hostess on speed dial.”

“He's definitely a loyal customer. And a very nice man,” Shea added, unsure if it was the correct thing to say. This whole being-hired-to-do-a-private-party thing was entirely new to her.

When Isaac Yellin, an Amber regular and payer of astronomically high bar tabs, had approached her months ago to do this, she'd balked. The offer was surprising enough, which was what had first given her pause. Then Mr. Yellin had named his price, and she'd been shocked into silence, which he mistook for reluctance.

Then he doubled his offer. And gave her carte blanche to choose the whiskey for the evening, as long as it was rare and expensive.

It wasn't hard to say yes after that.

The payment for her appearance fee had come through that afternoon, and she'd transferred it directly into her personal “distillery fund.” The sight of all those numbers made her a little giddy, and she had to temper her excitement. There was still a long way to go before she could go after what she wanted.

Having to deal with Yellin's kind of crowd outside of the Amber for one night was a small price to pay.

The hallway emptied into a spectacular room overlooking Central Park. The masculine furniture had been clustered for perfect pockets of conversation, every seat with a view outdoors. A string quartet warmed up in the back corner. The caterers hurried about, fidgeting with mounds of hors d'oeuvres and spot-checking silverware and wineglasses. A party planner holding a tablet computer raced around, looking like one more cup of coffee might send her to the asylum.

“You'll be in here.” Mrs. Yellin flicked a red-nailed hand toward a set of open double doors set off the main room. “I'll go find Isaac and tell him you've arrived.”

Shea stepped through the double doors and felt like she'd been sent back in time. Or, at least, back to the country of her heart.

The left wall was floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The entire right wall was a bar. An ornate, polished-to-a-gleam wood bar with thick columns at the corners, heavy lintels above, and gorgeous stained glass all along the back. Perfect lines of fine liquor bottles stretched the entire length of the back shelf, and on top of the bar sat her chosen bottles of whiskey, all delivered safely.

The whole room was gorgeous. Warm and inviting and high-end without being uncomfortable. But it was the sight of that bar that had her heart thudding and a wistful smile spreading across her face. She ran a hand down the wood, then leaned over and touched the tip of her nose to a finely carved column. Inhaled. The scent of the old wood and the sharpness of the stain reminded her so much of Granddad.

“You like it?”

Shea turned around to find Isaac Yellin entering. He had one of those faces that appeared mean when he wasn't smiling and like your best friend when he was. But she'd long since gotten over being intimidated by that sort of thing.

“It's beautiful,” she said. “It reminds me so much of the pubs I used to go to back in Scotland.”

“It should.” He grunted. “That's where I got it.”

“You bought a whole bar?”

Yellin shrugged. “They were going to tear down this wonderful old hotel in Glasgow, and I couldn't bear it. So I bought what I could, had it shipped here and restored. It's my favorite room.”

“Mr. Yellin,” she teased. “You're not Scottish, are you?”

“One hundred percent New York Jewish.” He grinned. “But perhaps Celtic by heart.” He tapped his chest, sending the ivory pocket square in his fine tuxedo askew.

He went over to the bottles and palmed the Talisker 30 Year Old. “I knew you'd pick some good ones. I'd say I'm going to hate seeing the bill, but since the people coming here tonight are the reasons I can afford such incredible whiskey, you won't hear me complaining.”

She smiled down at him. Even at five feet nine barefoot, she hadn't flinched about slipping into three-inch heels that evening.

“You just might be my dream client, Mr. Yellin. Most of these bottles I don't even have in my personal collection, but I've been coveting them for years and years.”

One had cost seven hundred dollars, another a thousand.

Men like him liked to know they were special, and since this was her job, she was happy to oblige. Plus, she was hoping to snag a sip or three of some of the really great bottles.

“So tell me.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “How'd you get them?”

“The newer Japanese whiskeys I got through my favorite distributor. I really need to take a trip over there, taste them personally, see their distilleries. A couple of the big bourbons and Irish whiskeys I found through auctions, others through personal connections. But for the Scotch”—she winked—“I simply called up some old friends.”

It was the truth. A few phone calls overseas had netted her some lucrative bottles and gave her the opportunity to hear voices she hadn't heard in a long while.

Yellin liked that. “You've made magic. Now make it special for my friends and acquaintances. Impress them with everything you've got up here.” He tapped the side of his head.

“No problem.” No problem at all.

Two hours later, the entire apartment was packed shoulder to shoulder with men in tuxes and women in all manner of evening gowns. The mood was lively, the food never-ending, and she'd had a steady stream of Brown Veins and Eager Beavers and Drinkers visit her little nook. Truth be told, she'd been skeptical about taking on this kind of private party, but it turned out that she interacted with Yellin's guests far more than customers at the Amber, and they'd listened to her stories of certain whiskeys with a rapt ear.

She was already exhausted, however—and so was nearly her entire stock of exceptional bottles—and there were still two hours to go. She ignored the soreness in her feet, the cramp in her cheeks from smiling so much, and the ever-increasing rasp in her voice from the nonstop talking.

She had another reason to be grateful for the busyness of the evening. It had been nearly four hours since she'd thought of Byrne.

Crap. Reset the clock.

A week and a half had passed since the campground. A week and a half of thinking about their conversation and connection. And that kiss. That spark.

They hadn't exchanged phone numbers. She'd lamented that for a good day or so, then thought that was perhaps a good thing. She knew where he worked, and vice versa, but then there were her lines. They were still there, despite how she'd tangled them all up in Rhode Island. It wouldn't feel right, contacting him at his office to start something she wasn't entirely sure about, now that time had passed. And she was grateful he hadn't called or stopped in at the Amber, because that meant he was respecting her rules.

But was she grateful? Really, truly?

Damn. Reset that clock
again
.

“Is that all that's left?” Isaac slid behind the bar and took up the same Talisker he'd held at the start of the evening, now three-fourths gone. When Shea nodded, he thrust the bottle at her and said, “Hide it. In the butler's pantry. Back of the kitchen.”

With a laugh, she did as told.

When she came back into the library, the I'm-not-thinking-about-Byrne clock exploded into a thousand pieces. Because he was standing right there, next to the bar.

He didn't wear a tux, but a sleek black suit that must have cost a fortune because of the way it fit his unusual body so impeccably. Atop a brilliant white shirt lay a gorgeous tie the exact color of his hypnotic blue eyes. He looked big. He looked bold enough to steal the party away from Yellin. He looked like Bespoke Byrne.

A group of five men mingled in front of the whiskey bottles, turning them this way and that, making comments she couldn't hear over the party's noise. Byrne's profile was to her, so he hadn't seen her yet, but as she stood there, dumbfounded, one of the other guys noticed her. He pointed a questioning finger at her, then turned it to the bottles. “You? This?” he mouthed.

As she started through the crowd, Byrne finally turned. He had a glass of something clear topped with a squeezed lime already halfway to his mouth, but that dropped back down when he noticed her. His lips parted, and if she said she wasn't thinking about how they'd tasted, she'd be lying.

He smiled at her, but it wasn't one of those electrifying, crooked grins. It was with his eyes, with the warm spark and the perfect crinkle of skin around them. Then he shook his head slowly as if he couldn't believe yet another one of their random meeting coincidences.

“I'm going to start thinking I'll be running into you at the grocery store,” he said, as she came up to him. “Wow. I was wondering if this”—he gestured to the line of bottles—“was you. I was hoping, I guess.”

One of the other men in Byrne's group—late forties, a little paunchy—cocked an eyebrow in interest at that, and Shea started to feel a little poke of panic. This wasn't the Amber, but it was still work. Still within the walls of the professional life she'd so carefully crafted.

Byrne glanced at his companion, then back to Shea, and gave her a nearly imperceptible nod. He understood.

“It's good to see you,” she told Byrne, hands clasped tightly in front of her in order to resist the urge to touch him. She longed to mess up his perfect hair so he'd resemble the muddy sin she remembered him as.

“It's”—he chewed the inside of his cheek for a second—“
great
to see you.”

She reached deep inside herself and pulled out the owner of the Amber, the professional, and managed to suppress the warm-blooded woman who was still very attracted to this man.

And
this
, she reminded herself,
was exactly why she never mixed her two worlds. Because it was damn impossible to keep her cool in front of someone like Byrne. The moment her customers—or tasters, or party guests—started to look at her as potential date material, they ceased speaking to Shea, businesswoman and purveyor of fine whiskeys.

“So how do you know Isaac Yellin?” she asked Byrne, the formal tone in her voice feeling so odd set against the memories of the way they'd teased and laughed and kissed in front of that campfire.

“He's my client.” Byrne smiled, but it wasn't the smile she loved. Not the one he'd given to her on several occasions. “I handle his money.” And then Byrne slid a sidelong look over to the paunchy man, like he was checking his reaction.

Shea took that opportunity to head back behind the bar, because even though she knew Byrne was a private banker, now that she'd been inside Yellin's place, she got a really good idea about the kind of money Byrne saw on a daily basis.

She did not want to, but she thought of Marco.

“We were out to dinner earlier,” Byrne offered, gesturing to the other suited gentlemen. “Showing Gordon here”—he clamped a hand on the paunchy man's shoulder—“a good time while he's in town.”

“Trying to win me over, you mean,” Gordon replied with a chuckle.

Byrne's responsive laugh was so forced Shea almost made a face at him.

“I'm glad you're here,” Byrne said to Gordon. “And I'm glad Shea's here, because she knows everything about Scotch. Absolutely everything.”

Ugh. Byrne was using her to solicit new business? To schmooze a potential new chunk of money? This was not the Byrne who'd been at the campground
at all
.

“Bring it on.” Gordon slapped the edge of the bar. “Hit me with it, beautiful.”

Shea's grip on the glasses almost shattered the crystal. A glance at Byrne showed him staring at the bar, one side of his mouth twisting.